New York Today: Halftime Show, Locally Grown

Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency The Super Bowl halftime show will feature, among others, Bruno Mars.

Updated, 10:36 a.m.

Good Friday morning and welcome to the slush bowl. With the warming weather, beware of pools of salt and ice.

It’s two days before the Super Bowl across the Hudson.

We heard a local was producing the halftime show, so we gave him a call.

Ricky Kirshner, who has seven halftime Super Bowl shows already under his belt, grew up in South Orange, N.J.

Mr. Kirshner, 53, lives with his wife and kids in Manhattan.

Is it thrilling to produce this year’s show, which stars Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, on his home turf?

“You could be anywhere,” he said with the whimsy of a true New Jerseyan. “You’re between your office and the stadium.”

Anything make this Super Bowl stand out?

“The weather.”

“Growing up here, I knew what it was like in February,” he said. “I was like, why is everyone freaking out?”

“I was totally wrong because this week was really cold.”

Rehearsals required his team of 1,700 to be outside for three hours at a time.

Only last night could performers peel off their coats and rehearse in full wardrobe.

Spoiler alert: Sunday’s 12-minute halftime show includes five high school marching bands from New Jersey â€" South Brunswick, Nutley, Bergenfield, Morris Knolls and Roxbury.

Here’s what else you need to know.

WEATHER

Return of the big four-oh, if not today (forecast high: 39 degrees), then definitely Saturday (44) and Sunday (48).

Cloudy throughout, but good football weather if you’re into that kind of thing.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or N.J. Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is suspended for Asian Lunar New Year. Meters are in effect.

Remember: Broadway is Super-closed to traffic from 47th Street to 34th Street through Sunday. Side streets in the area are also to be avoided.

Other Weekend Travel Hassles: Check subway disruptions or list of street closings.

COMING UP TODAY

- Daytime fireworks for Lunar New Year, at Sara Roosevelt Park on Chrystie Street. 11 a.m. [Free]

- Here’s a guide to Lunar New Year events across the city today and throughout the weekend.

- Mayor de Blasio is on Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show at 6 p.m.

- Modern portraits of the 12th-century warlord Prince Igor go on display in the gallery at the Metropolitan Opera, in honor of next week’s opening of “Prince Igor” the Borodin opera. [Free]

- “Dance on Camera,” a five-day festival of films of dancing, opens at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. [Some free, others not]

- Learn about apple-stuffed upside-down French toast and other landmarks of Alabamian cuisine at the Art of Alabama Food exhibit at Chelsea Market, through Sunday. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. [Free]

- An open-mike throwdown for teenagers and young adults at Von King Park cultural center in Bedford-Stuyesant. 6 p.m. [Free]

- The percussionist Steven Schick leads a panel talk on percussion in the 21st century, at Columbia. 3 p.m. [Free] (He also plays a concert on Saturday at 8 p.m. [$25-$35])

- Walt Frazier tells a neuroscientist what it’s like inside the mind of a basketball player, at the Rubin Museum. 7 p.m. [$40]

- Last two days to see the Puppy Bowl in Times Square. 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. [Free, reservations required]

- If you seek more Super Bowl-related fun, SocialEyesNYC.com has a big list of things to do. And here’s a guide from The Times.

- If, on the other hand, you seek to avoid the whole extravaganza, DNAinfo has a guide to non-Super events.

- For even more listings, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- The de Blasio administration will settle lawsuits over stop-and-frisk tactics by agreeing to reforms ordered by a federal judge… [New York Times]

- … and will stop assigning rookie officers to high-crime precincts. [New York Times]

- A subway fare increase to $2.75 next year is possible. [Daily News]

- Hammer-wielding masked robbers smashed display cases at Cartier on Fifth Avenue and made off with $700,000 in watches. [New York Times]

- An artist calls attention to violent movie posters that dot the subways by posing, bloodied, in front of the guns pointed at him. [Gothamist]

- Authors will appear in person at your book club, for a fairly hefty price. [New York Times]

- And the city’s first professional cuddle therapist charges $60 a snuggle. [Daily News via Gothamist]

- Scoreboard: Knicks slay Cavaliers, 117-86. Devils extinguish Stars, 3-2 in overtime.

THE WEEKEND

Saturday

- Free coffee and other treats for humans and their dogs at a Coffee Bark in Prospect Park. 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

- The Wonderful Wizard of Odd, in which six clowns interpret scenes from “The Wizard of Oz,” at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. 11 a.m. [Free, limited seating]

- Make a Victorian-style valentine for a nursing home resident, and one for someone else, at a workshop at Historic Richmond Town on Staten Island. 1 p.m. [Free]

- Worship the so-called talk-radio “sports pope” Mike Francesa at the FrancescaCon, starting at Saloon on York Avenue at noon.

- Last weekend for the “War/Photography” show at the Brooklyn Museum. [$12]

- Who knew their audiences overlapped? “Girls” temporarily moves to Saturday to avoid the Super Bowl. As does “Looking.” 10 p.m., 10:30 p.m.

Sunday

- Worship Chuck the almighty groundhog at the Staten Island Zoo as he issues his annual augury. Doors open at 6:30 a.m., augury at 7:30 a.m. [Free]

- Last day for the stunning Mike Kelley show at MoMA PS1. Noon to 6 p.m. [$10]

- A lecture, “German Expressionism on the Eve of the Great War: The Artist as Mystic Vessel,” at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Times Square. 10 a.m. [Free]

- Learn about the history of black barber shops in America at a lecture by Quincy Mills, author of a book on the subject, at the main Brooklyn Public Library. 1 p.m. [Free]

- Lunar New Year festivities, continued: a parade, with the usual cast of dragons, starting at Hester and Mott Streets. 1 p.m. [Free]

- If you’re looking for something fun outside New York City, The Times’s Metropolitan section has suggestions for Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut.

AND FINALLY …

This week in 1860, the head of a Manhattan synagogue, Morris Raphall, became the first rabbi to deliver the opening prayer in Congress.

Reviews were mixed.

According to a 2010 article in The Forward, one newspaper called the rabbi’s appearance “the triumph of an enlightened religious opinion over the vulgar prejudices of the world.”

But an Episcopal publication, The Churchman, wrote that it produced a sense of “extreme sorrow, and almost disgust.” The rabbi’s prayer, the publication wrote, amounted to “no less than the official rejection of Christianity by the Legislature of the country.”

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

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